204 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[July. 



Fruit and Vegetable Gardening. 



SEASONABLE HINTS. 



In many amateurs' gardens late peas are valued. 

 It is essential that they be planted in the coolest 

 part of the ground. The pea is a cool country 

 plant, and when it has to grow in warm weather 

 it mildews. The Marrowfat class are usually 

 employed for late crops. They need support. All 

 peas grow better and produce more when grown 

 to stakes. Bush beans may be also sown for late 

 crops. A very deep rich soil is necessary to ten- 

 der, crisp pods. The Lima bean will now be 

 growing rapidly. It is time well spent to tie them 

 to the poles as they grow. The poles should not 

 be too high — about eight feet is enough. They 

 commence to bear freely only when the top of the 

 pole is reached. 



The lettuce is another cool country plant. It 

 can only be grown well in hot weather when in 

 very rich and cool soil. For winter use, beets are 

 occasionally sown now, and also cucumbers for 

 pickling purposes ; but not often ; and, at any 

 rate, it must be attended to early in the month. 

 Tomatoes trained to stakes give the sweetest fruit, 

 and remain in bearing the longest ; but many cul- 

 tivators, who grow for size and quantity only, 

 believe they have the best results when growing 

 them on the level ground. Celery is the chief 

 crop requiring attention. The great point is to get 

 short thick-growing varieties, as the long kinds 

 require so much moi-e labor to blanch. There are 

 now a number of new candidates, and people 

 will try these varieties as they try new fruits. 

 After so many trials with different ways of grow- 

 ing them, those who have their own gardens — 

 amateurs, for whom we write — find that the old 

 plan of sinking the plants in shallow pits is about 

 the best. Trenches are dug about six inches deep, 

 and three or four inches of manure then dug in, of 

 which cow-manure is the best. They can be 

 watered better this way in dry weather, when in 

 these trenches, and it is so much easier to fill the 

 earth about them for blanching purposes than 

 when grown on the level surface. Soapsuds, as 

 well as salt in moderate doses, is usually a won- 

 derful special fertilizer for the celery plant. 



Late cabbage is often ])lantcd in gardens be- 



tween rows of potatoes, where it is an object to- 

 save space. Some fancy that the cabbage is bet- 

 ter preserved in this way from the cabbage-fly, 

 which, they say, prefers the potato ; but on this 

 point we are not sure. We do not think the cab- 

 bage does quite as well as when it has the whole 

 ground to itself; but of course a double crop 

 could not be expected to be quite so fine. 



In the fruit garden there is little to be done at 

 this season, either in the North or the South, if 

 our instructions have been from time to time care- 

 fully attended to. Some like to make new beds 

 of strawberries in the autumn, and the further we 

 get south the more is this a necessity, and not a 

 choice. But we should be careful in getting 

 young plants in selecting from those which 

 have healthy green foliage, and not covered by 

 brown fungus spots. Fungus may or may not be 

 a cause of disease; one thing is certain, whenever 

 fungus grows on a plant its vital power soon will 

 be exhausted if not already. 



From the extent to which we find the practice 

 prevails among amateurs, we may also hint here 

 that it is very bad practice to pick off the leaves 

 of grape vines with the idea that the fruit wjll 

 ripen better therefor. Sometimes there are too 

 many leaves. The growth is too thick ; one 

 smothers the other. In this case we may thin out 

 the shoots, leaves and all, but never the leaves 

 alone. 



In many cases, should the autumn prove dry, it 

 will be an advantage to water small Iruits if water 

 be convenient or cheap to hand. Drying off used 

 to be thought a good thing— but like so many old 

 notions, we find it has its extravagancies. The 

 reason why raspberries, blackberries, and such 

 things often winter kill is not because of late 

 growths, but that they were half killed by prema- 

 ture drying. 



«•» 



COMMUNICATIONS. 



CULTIVATION; AS AFFECTING THE 

 STRAWBERRY. 



HY J. H. ROGERS. 



In the consideration of the cultivation of the 

 Strawberry, under this heading, the first recjuisite 

 is to form a clear conception of what the vegetative 



